


An Epilogue and Interquel

by iye



Series: hettyc ka'ra - (burning stars) [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied Poe Dameron/Finn, Recovery, This fic won't make too much sense if you haven't read the first part of this series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:15:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25144537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iye/pseuds/iye
Summary: noun.interquel(plural: interquels) [narratology]Any middle sequel with an earlier and a later installment.✦✦✦
Series: hettyc ka'ra - (burning stars) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1819918
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	An Epilogue and Interquel

✦✦✦✦

Poe hid his grief as best he could in the weeks after. But it was hard. Some days he couldn't bring himself to leave his quarters.

His squadron knew he was hurting. But they could do nothing, as much as they tried. And as much as he loved them for trying. 

Leia knew more. He knew she could feel his heart.

He ended up throwing himself back into his work. Into fighting the First Order. It was the least he could do.

He volunteered for every mission. Every solo mission, that was.

He had a model of an A-wing, shaped by twisted metal. The accents were coloured with ice-blue paint.

Cara had found it in Avara’s cabin, on the _Ember_.

It had been made for him.

When the agony of his grief began to ease, Poe took it and stuck it on his bunk side-table.

The next time his boots thumped onto a sandy planet, was on Jakku. A whole year later.

Leia had found him an important mission. A mission to find her brother.

Something deep curdled in his gut as he told his little droid to take the disk that held the map and run as the sounds of a firefight roared behind him. Just like last time. He knew BB-8 hesitated.

He was captured again, but this time he wasn’t as scared. This time he wasn’t going to lose anyone. He hid anything he felt behind a cold, indifferent mask. It was easy.

But when Kylo Ren dug through him ruthlessly, rifling through his memories with no care, seeing everything as he looked for the map, it all came back to the surface. As if he was reliving every single thing that ever hurt him, in unnaturally vivid colour.

The fear, grief, pain. 

It glowed a violent red storm behind his eyes.

His mother, Muran, Avara.

Everything. Everyone.

Strapped to that contraption, alone, Poe could do nothing but be lost in his mind. So he did something he hadn't done in a long time.

He tried to remember them as much as he could before he was inevitably taken away to be terminated. He just hoped they would do it quickly. Painlessly.

He realised he couldn't recall the Mando'a that she had taught him. The realisation dragged tears into his eyes.

It had slipped away from his memory in the time he'd spent trying to avoid thinking about those last days on Ord Mantell.

But his meditative thinking was cut short when a stormtrooper dragged him out, to take him to Ren.

Except, he wasn’t being taken to Ren. He was being rescued.

He woke up with a mouthful of sand, shivering and coughing. 

For a split second, he thought he was on Mandalore.

But he remembered.

The TIE that he’d been in, that _Finn_ had been in, crashed. Back onto Jakku.

He tried searching for the wreckage but it was too dark. Too cold. He didn’t have his jacket.

He wished she would appear and wrap him up with a mat and call him a Yavin IV weakling. 

The memory warmed him as he curled up in the sand. Temporarily. 

And again, he found his way back to D'Qar.

After the skirmish on Takodana, he found Finn back on D’Qar with BB-8.

Finn was brave and kind. His bright eyes and protectiveness reminded Poe of someone. 

So he clung to Finn while simultaneously holding him at arm’s length. He couldn’t lose someone else. Not again.

The Resistance almost got snuffed out as they evacuated and fled D’Qar. Leia had been in a coma, on the edge of death after a TIE attack on their cruiser. 

So, of course, he was scared. Scared that it was over. Terrified that it had all been a waste. That everything he’d done had been a waste. Everything he’d lost.

They managed to reach Crait. Nothing more than a mere group of survivors. But the Order followed them there.

And they escaped, somehow slipping between Ren and Hux’s fingers.

That’s when he met Rey. She was quiet at first and she ate her food really fast. And he soon came to realise that it was just too easy to childishly bicker with her.

After, there were more missions.

One led them to Corellia. He thought of the covert, now on Mandalore. 

It was almost another year after Crait. Their new base had been roughly recreated on Ajan Kloss. The planet reminded him of Yavin IV, of home.

They were about to leave on the _Falcon_ to try to find Exegol, the hidden Sith planet or whatever it was.

He was only going to be with Finn and Rey. He had no other reason to go. He knows Leia almost asks him to stay behind, he can see it in her eyes. But she knows that he would never let them go without him.

He was sifting through his stuff in his quarters, digging around, making sure he hadn’t forgotten to take anything. 

Something caught his eye. He pulled on it, and it slipped out from below his clothes.

A dark grey scarf. It was soft and thin in his hand.

He stared at it for a long second, caressing the gentle material. He’d forgotten he had it. He’d never given it back. She’d never asked for it back.

So Poe tied it around his neck. 

Maybe her protection would come with it, he thought.

It seemed like it had. 

He used the scarf to wrap up the fresh blaster wound on his arm. It could’ve hit his chest.

When they get back to their base, Commander D'Acy tells them Leia is gone.

It was as if someone was twisting a blade into his stomach.

Poe was exiting hyperspace, throat tight. This was it. Exegol. They’d found it. And it was their last chance.

He led his pilots in the air while Finn led an assault with Jannah and her company on the hull of a Star Destroyer.

It was hopeless. He couldn't remember how he had thought they'd even stood a chance.

He screamed as he watched Snap go down in a blaze of fire and crash into one of the hundreds of Star Destroyers. Agony burned in him for a long second, tears threatening to follow, but he had to focus. He had to keep fighting. He _promised_.

The problem was that the only things he could focus on were the last, desperate cries of his pilots that were filling the comms.

Until the people of the galaxy arrived. And then he led them, as a General of the Resistance. 

His heart tightened when Rose told him that Finn and Jannah were still on the Star Destroyer. The one that was currently crashing into Exegol’s surface. 

Fate couldn’t be that cruel, could it? Would it really take Finn from him as well?

He dove to save them but the _Falcon_ swept past, faster. And at that moment, he caught a glimpse of three fighters. 

Fang Fighters, in the corner of his eye. They were painted brightly, with ice-blue and gold stripes. 

The same blue as the small A-wing currently sitting on his X-wing dashboard. He’d brought it with him.

The Fangs spun radiantly, momentarily taking down TIEs with him, beside him, before disappearing into battle.

Survivors were landing back on Ajan Kloss. 

He pointed at Finn with a gleeful yelp and grabbed him into a hug as tight as he could manage with one arm in a sling. 

Love bloomed in him. And he finally let it. He hadn’t let himself feel it in a long time. Not like this.

Then they found Rey and wrapped around each other. His family.

A few minutes later, a dark blue Mandalorian gave him a small nod while a bright orange waved. They were leaning against one of the Fang Fighters.

Poe smiled and nodded slowly as emotion tightened his throat.

He hadn’t stopped fighting.

Just like he’d promised.

✦✦✦✦

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't feel the need to elaborate on these events because there were three movies depicting them after all.
> 
> I know that feels like an ending, but it's really not. This is an Interquel as well as an Epilogue.
> 
> So, obviously there is still more coming. This isn't what I meant as being part two, this is just a middle bit. And I've already written quite a bit of the next part so I'll begin posting soon [ When my exams ease off :/ ].  
> \- Iye


End file.
